"I feel like a father to those kittens," said Peter, gravely. But it
was plain that Martin Luther's furry fourlegs had put Peter's nose
out of joint!

Things were getting worse and worse at school, too, although Peter
considerately concealed this from his mother. He didn't tell her
that the promotions she was so proud of had come to him simply
because his teachers were so desperately anxious to get rid of him!
And only to-day an incident had happened that seared his soul. He
had been forced to stand out on the floor for twenty cruel, grueling
minutes, to be a Horrible Example to a tittering class. It had been
a long, wearisome day, when one's head ached because one's stomach
was empty. Peter's eyes stung and smarted, his lip was bruised
because he had bitten it to keep it from trembling, and his heart
was more like a boil in his breast than a little boy's heart. When
he was finally released for the day he didn't linger, but got away
as fast as his thin legs would carry him. Once he was sure he was
out of sight of all unfriendly eyes he let himself go and cried as
he trudged along the Riverton Road. And there, in the afternoon
sunlight, he made the acquaintance of the Red Admiral.

Just at that spot the Riverton Road was tree-shaded and
bird-haunted. There were clumps of elder here and there, and cassena
bushes, and tall fennel in the corners of the old worm-fence
bordering the fields on each side. The worm-fence was of a polished,
satiny, silvery gray, with trimmings of green vines clinging to it,
wild-flowers peeping out of its crotches, and tall purple thistles
swaying their heads toward it. On one especially tall thistle the
Red Admiral had come to anchor.